If you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines.

Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle.

Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated.

There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO.

It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see as tricks and sneaky tactics.

Today we’ll talk about the “new” SEO copywriting techniques you can take advantage of in a post-Panda search world.

Ready for the mind-blowing “secret new ingredient”?

It’s the authority, editorial focus, and relevance of your site — in other words, your site quality.

Be careful — site quality may not mean what you think it means

It’s not just good writing. That can help, but it’s not enough.

It’s not just having a lot of content. That helps too, but it has to be the right content.

And it’s not just optimization. Optimization still matters … but only after you take care of these key site quality factors.

Improving your site quality means building a site that works for users first, and search engines second.

In other words, it’s what Copyblogger has been telling you to do with your SEO for six years now.

Let’s take a look at some individual elements of site quality, and how you can boost them to create a site that works for users and search engines.

Is your site someplace readers want to be?

One of the factors Google looks at is how long a reader spends on your site. Not just on the page they land on, but are they sticking around to check out other pages?

It starts with site design that’s clean, uncluttered, and appealing.

It may not make sense for you at this point to spend thousands of dollars on graphic design, but anyone can benefit from great-looking site design (that also happens to be well-optimized for SEO) for less than $100.

You also want to make sure you’re on good, reliable web hosting, so that waiting for your site to load doesn’t resemble waiting in line at the DMV. Slow sites aren’t good for users and they don’t earn search engine love.

Finally — and most important — you need to put reader questions, problems, and concerns front and center. If you’re a great resource for them, they’ll stick around and see what else you have to offer. What’s the secret there? Content, of course.

Less sophisticated SEOs might advise you to outsource a writer (who may or may not be particularly proficient in English) to slap together hundreds of pages that have the right keywords on them.

That’s a sign that you need to fire your SEO. The true SEO pros know that it isn’t just content you need — it’s good content.

Good content isn’t always the most gracefully written. It might violate every grammatical rule in the book. It might be brash, or weird. It might offend your in-laws.

But for your purposes, it’s good content if it’s:

• The content your readers actually want to read, and
• It’s content that serves your persuasion goals.

Good content is persuasive, it’s interesting, it’s useful, and it gets shared. It earns the “signals” that tell search engines you’ve got the best site in your topic.

What do you talk about most of the time?

This one can be a real advantage, letting a relatively small site win the SERP battle against a much bigger competitor … for the right term.

That’s because Google now looks more closely at what you talk about most of the time.

Here on Copyblogger, we talk a lot about writing and content marketing. And we tend to do very nicely for terms related to those things.

We don’t talk much about pizza, weight loss, FOREX trading, pharmaceuticals, or naked mole rats. So even though this site has lots of authority in general with Google, because we’ve attracted a lot of high-quality links over the years, we’re not going to rank for those terms.

That’s why for every site that got kicked in the teeth by Google’s Panda update, there was another site — one with a lot of high-quality content that was well focused around a particular topic — that started to see a nice boost in search traffic.

Write about what you want to rank for. Then write some more about that. Then write some more.

Keep your content focused. Keep serving your audience. And keep showing up.

Every page is a landing page

Seth Godin made this observation about a million years ago, and it will always be true.

You don’t know how your next reader will find your site. It might be the result of a search. It might be from a social media share. It might be an email post that got forwarded. You might have bought some traffic with pay-per-click.

It doesn’t actually matter. Because every page on your site is a landing page for someone. The reader jumps into your site there … and looks around to see what to do next.

Every page has to lead gracefully into everything else you do. Every page has to underscore the value you provide.

That means you make your navigation user-friendly, you highlight your very best content, and you get smart about internal links. Which brings us to …

How to use your link structure

Remember when we talked about keeping readers nicely stuck to your site, poking around and finding lots of good stuff to read, listen to, or watch?

That’s one of the many excellent reasons to have lots of internal links in your content.

What should you link to? To your best content — what we call your cornerstone content. Your best advice, your best thinking, and your best answers to the questions readers come up with again and again.

Content landing pages are a handy way to focus those links, but you should also keep linking to your favorite posts that address a key point in your topic particularly well.

Not only does this encourage readers to spend some more quality time on your site, it also gives you a little something when the &$%# scrapers re-post your work. The resulting backlinks you get aren’t exactly going to make or break you with the search engines, but if the scraped page has any readers at all, some of them will come find you.

Remember to be smart about how you’re using anchor text when you link to your own stuff. Use keywords gracefully, and again (as always) write for your readers first. Don’t try to stuff your content with internal links — use them when they make sense and give the reader a deeper view into what you write about.

Of course it isn’t new

Obviously I’m indulging in a bit of silliness by calling this a “new” factor. Google (and the other search engines) have always wanted to make site quality their main factor — but doing that was difficult.

So they put a bunch of very brainy engineers on it, and every year they get a little better.

Here’s what one of their relatively new engineers said in a recent interview, quoted in Web Pro News.

Manipulating Google results shouldn’t be something you feel entitled to be able to do. If you want to rank highly in Google, be relevant for the user currently searching. Engage him in social media or email, provide relevant information about what you’re selling, and, generally, be a “good match” for what the user wants.

That’s always been their position. Trying to fight that by exploiting weaknesses in their algorithm is a short-term solution that tends not to work very well for your readers … or for the long-term health of your business.

Don’t take shortcuts, they take too long

I was talking with a gentleman at a conference this week, and he mentioned a colleague with dozens of clients who got utterly demolished by Google’s Panda update — an update designed to improve the quality of the sites Google ranks well.

Interestingly, every one of those Panda-smacked clients followed the same marketing guru for “shortcuts” to good search traffic.

Shortcuts can work for a little while. And you may have found a good one that will get you a quick burst of traffic while you build something that lasts.

But if you aren’t building a site that’s worth reading (and that’s therefore worth sharing in social media, and worth linking to), the most brilliant shortcut in the world will take you away from where you want to go.

Because you aren’t serving search engines. You’re serving readers and customers. Put them first and everything else will start working for you.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Share your favorite SEO and content marketing techniques with her on twitter.

It’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it.

Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them.

Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day.

What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of:

1. You’d better know how to write a compelling headline
2. You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab (and keep) your reader

We’re not telling you to keep your copy short. We’re telling you to keep your copy readable.

Why bullet points? Like it or not, they keep people reading your blog posts, pages, articles, and copy like nothing else…

But lame bullet points won’t take you where you want to go. So let’s take a quick look at how to get this done, and get it done well:

The basics of writing bullet points that work

The essence of a great bullet is brevity + promise.

Brevity has been a hallmark of good writing since writing began, but every one of us living in the Twitter Age possesses an acute awareness of just how important brevity is right now.

Long, complex bullet points would defeat the purpose of writing bullets at all — to keep your reader moving through your copy.

Promise is the element that hooks your reader like a fish. You’re making a plain and legitimate claim that your product/idea/service will give them what they’ve been looking for.

Goes without saying (but of course I’m going to say it anyway), you absolutely must deliver on the promise you make. There are probably faster ways of ruining your credibility and career, but not giving your reader what you promised is definitely in the top three.

Brian Clark wrote the definitive “Bullet Points 101″ post more than five years ago. Go ahead and read that through at your earliest convenience.

Seriously, here’s that link again — click it and read that post about 10 times.

And, since I’d rather straight up steal from Clark than try to outwrite him, here’s his summary of what an effective bullet point is and does:

1. A bullet expresses a clear benefit and promise to the reader. That’s right… they’re mini-headlines. Bullets encourage the scanning reader to go back into the real meat of your content, or go forward with your call to action.
2. Keep your bullet points symmetrical if possible; meaning, one line each, two lines each, etc. It’s easier on the eyes and therefore easier on the reader.
3. Avoid bullet clutter at all costs. Do not get into a detailed outline jumble of subtitles, bullets and sub-bullets. Bullets are designed for clarity, not confusion.
4. Practice parallelism. Keep your bullet groups thematically related, begin each bullet with the same part of speech, and maintain the same grammatical form.
5. Remember that bullets (like headlines) are not necessarily sentences. If you want to write complete sentences, stick with a paragraph or a numbered list.

Now that we’re standing on a firm foundation, let’s move into how to actually write these bullets …

8 ways to write bullet points that work

You might have seen bloggers complain about the proliferation of list posts and “27 Ways to …” articles.

The thing is, the elitists don’t know what they’re talking about. Again, in this fast, short, and constantly evolving digital world, she who makes sense first, wins.

And one of the best ways to make sense of an idea — especially online — is not to dumb it down, it’s to break it up into digestible chunks.

Bullet points can be a great way to do that — but don’t just rely on the stale, simplistic bullet point types you’re using now. Expand your range and add these fascinating bullet point types.

1. External Fascinations: These types of fascinating bullet points are usually found in sales copy. They create curiosity and work like headlines to prompt a purchase or other action.
2. Internal Fascinations: Internal fascinations are pretty much identical to external, except they’re designed to persuade people to continue reading the post they’re already reading.
3. Bullet Chunking: Extracting bullets out of compound sentences helps you drive home a point while also increasing the usability of your content.
4. Authority Bullets: Authority bullets are used to recite the data and proof that support your argument. As with all persuasive writing, turn dry factual information into interesting reading any time you can.
5. Cliffhanger Bullets: Cliffhanger bullets tease and foreshadow what’s coming up next or in the near future. You can also use cliffhanger bullets to lay the groundwork for an upcoming promotion, launch, or special content event.

If you want to know more specifics about how to write those (including examples), check out this classic Copyblogger post on useful bullet point types.

And — as a little bonus — our pal Ben Settle expanded on Brian’s post with a few more bullet types of his own.

Here’s a few of Ben’s favorite bullet point secrets:

6. Give-Away Bullets: These are sort of like the lady who hands out cheese cubes at the grocery store. She gives people a little “taste” of food that keeps them alert and shopping — and many times they end up with the thing they tasted in the shopping cart.
7. Expansion Bullets: These bullets break up the “sameness” of the page (when you have several pages of bullets), and they add more tease, demonstration and curiosity. Plus, they give a nice little “loop” effect to your ad that keeps sucking the reader back in.
8. “Can’t Be Done” Bullets: Basically, this is where you say something that is almost unbelievable. Something 100% true, but that is so wacky and “out there” it makes you say, “How in the heck can you do that?”

Congratulations, you now know more about bullet points than most working writers.

And here’s the simplest shortcut to jump start you in the art of the bullet …

A simple shortcut to writing bullet points that work

Craft each bullet as if it were to serve as your your headline.

The goal here is to achieve, uh, headlineability with each bullet.

You probably won’t quite achieve headline perfection with each and every bullet, but if you stick to this principle generally, writing bullets gets much easier.

And, more important, those beautiful little bulleted lines will keep your readers running down your page like water on a slide…

Want the whole enchilada?

These Quick Copy Tips are meant to get you started on (and thinking about) very specific copywriting principles and tactics.

If you want the entire picture of the “Copyblogger Philosophy” — including strategic teaching on content marketing, email marketing, social media, and more — go ahead and sign up for our free Internet Marketing for Smart People course.

Do you love bullet points or loathe them? What’s your favorite way to use them in your content? Let us know in the comments …

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.

We all know that guest posts grow blogs.

But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers.

Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits.

In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post.

Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals.

Who am I to teach you about guest blogging?

It seems like the decent thing would be to start this article by flashing my “guest blogging badge.”

At least that way you’ll understand why I’m wearing these high-glare aviators.

For me, the proof was in the pudding, and the pudding was the sale of an 8-month-old blog for almost $20,000 while I was still in University.

Actually, I sold the blog after a year had passed, but I had mostly stopped working on it at the eight-month mark.

That baby was built on tactical guest posts. So were the other blogs I’ve sold for similar price tags, and I’m doing the same with Blog Tyrant.

It’s now almost a decade later, and despite being a mediocre writer I still have success with these strategies.

Hopefully they’ll give you some extra juice for your next guest appearance. With that, I give you the 7 tactical elements of a radically successful guest post

1. A guest post should funnel people to an outcome, not a home page

Every time you do a guest post, you’re given a little space in the post for a biography, with a link (as well as a few in-post links) that can direct readers back to your blog.

The mistake that most newbies make is they don’t give any thought to where they are sending those new readers.

Click away and you’re likely to end up on a home page or some nicely done but relatively unrelated post (usually with a good amount of tweets or comments).

What you need to do is funnel people toward a specific outcome.

Let’s say your goal is to get as many email subscribers as possible. A successful funnel would entail:

• Creating a niche-specific free giveaway. You’d create an eBook that is centered around a very specific topic in your niche that will appeal to a well-defined group.
• Creating a landing page or ad for that eBook. The next step is to add that eBook to your blog and give it away as a free incentive for joining your list, using a service like Aweber. If you don’t know how to do this I made a video.
• Guest posting on closely related topics. Here’s the sexy part. You now go out and guest post on topics that are closely related to your free giveaway. Link back to your landing page/advert if you can, but even if you don’t you will be funneling and pre-selling people on the idea of your eBook.

Sending people back to random posts or a home page is just a waste of time.

Just like filling up your car with petrol, you need to put fuel in the gas tank, not pour it all over the engine. Use a content funnel to direct the flow of traffic toward your desired outcome or target.

It doesn’t matter what it is — a free eBook, product, etc. — as long as you are intentionally directing people there.

Don’t assume they’ll find it for themselves.

2. A guest post should mention big bloggers in your niche

Simply put, one of the fastest ways to grow a new blog is to mention other sites with big audiences in your guest post appearances.

This strategy, while obvious to some, has many benefits.

First, it associates you with those experts.

Second, if you drop a handy email or Tweet before the guest post goes live, you can harness the sheer awesomeness of their contact lists. Most of the time they will at least tweet out your guest post and thus associate themselves with your content. This is also a nice bit of promotion that your “host blog” will appreciate.

And third, it opens a door with those bloggers. When you send them a guest post, they’ll have an idea of who you are, and will be that much more open to taking a look at what you send them.

This type of professional networking is extremely helpful if you want to place guest posts on good blogs. I think of it as giving before receiving.

3. A guest post should be followed up by sister posts

One of the coolest things I ever learned about guest posting was that you can leverage the fame of your guest post to create buzz for your own blog.

I actually learned it in reverse, and a good example is when I did a post about the best About Us pages, and mentioned Copyblogger.

Brian Clark kindly Tweeted my post, which helped me land a big chunk of traffic and some super fast indexing at the top of Google for the key phrase “best About Us pages.”

Since that time Brian has been active on other posts I’ve done. For example, he stopped by here to leave a comment.

Not only does this make me feel all warm inside because Old Man Clark is one of my heroes and has a cool goatee, it also has some pretty obvious and ongoing benefits.

Mention big bloggers in your guest posts, then give them a reason to tweet or promote follow-up posts you do. Don’t just reach out once — create follow-up content that continues that relationship.

Think of it as the second date.

4. A guest post should be aimed at 10 years of results, not 10 hours

Sonia Simone once said that,

The rewards of guest posting are cumulative…. you build more momentum the more you post.

I used to write a guest post and eagerly await the flow of traffic and increase in subscribers that occurs after being published.

I’d to spend the whole day looking at stats and monitoring the progress of the article on all the social networking sites.

But I soon realized the error of my ways. A guest post needs to be a 10-year strategy.

While still important, I now place a lot less importance on the initial flow of traffic and tweets.

Why?

For starters, I am more interested in how the guest post matures. So now I ask myself these questions in order to judge the success of a guest post:

• Does it rank well on Google< for a keyword phrase that is going to continually benefit my own site and goals?
• Does it boost my reputation and credibility in the niche?
• Did it make me any new contacts in the industry?
• Did it create a discussion on the post or somewhere else?

If you want to write guest posts that produce results for years to come, you need to do some solid keyword research as well as creating an exhaustive post that covers issues — to the point of becoming a timeless resource.

Jonathan Morrow does this extremely well here on Copyblogger. He writes resource-rich, original content that will rank well and get people interested in his upcoming releases.

5. Each guest post should be part of an anchor text strategy

Anchor text is the text you use when you link to a post.

Just above you’ll see that “Jonathan Morrow” is the anchor text for that link to his articles here on Copyblogger.

Your choice of anchor text is hugely important for search engine rankings.

We all know that relevant backlinks help us to rank better on Google, but the anchor text of those backlinks also plays a big role in what exact keywords we rank for.

When you do a guest post, you should have already done keyword research and know specifically what phrases you want to rank for, based on how much traffic they bring and how competitive they are. Remember, you want your guest post to be bringing you love from Google for the next ten years.

Once that post is live, you can then link back to it in the future using the desired anchor text. This will help you elevate your own post on someone else’s website so that it matures well.

Just remember that SEO copywriting has to work for humans first, search engine robots second. Mix it up sometimes, and only link to your article if it is relevant and useful for real-life human beings.

6. Each comment should be answered or used as material

One of the really important things to do when you guest post is stick around and answer every single question that you get in the comments.

It’s in the comments section that long term relationships are built with the readers that you are reaching on the new blog.

It’s in the comments section that you enhance your branding as an expert or fellow traveler or mentor.

I have never tested it, but I would guess that at least half of the loyal readers I get from guest posts left comments that I answered on the day of publication.

If a comment or question is really good, you can take the idea and use it as the germ of a post on your own blog. Announce it in the comments section and see how many people drop on over to see what you’ve done with it.

7. Guest posts should be aimed mostly at beginners

It might seem a little counter-intuitive, but most of the readers who interact with content, subscribe to your list, and eventually buy your products, are newbies.

Think about the entrance paths for finding posts. Most of the time people either Google a question because they don’t know the answer, or click a referral link on Facebook/Twitter/Blog because it’s something they are unfamiliar with.

A lot of any blog’s readers are new to that blog’s topic. And that tends to be where new readers come from — newbies looking for a grounding in the topic.

After a while, the intermediate group often trails off and focuses on their own projects, as opposed to sticking around to learn more skills.

The more successful guest posts are the ones that focus on topics that are well digested by beginners, especially if you are aiming at getting that post indexed well on Google.

Try to write list posts and articles with an instructional tone, full of resources and links.

What guest posting strategies work for you?

I’d really like to hear about what guest posting strategies have worked or not worked for you.

Have you tried anything above with great success?

Please leave a comment and let me know. All ideas are welcome — especially the half-baked ones …

About the Author: The Blog Tyrant is a 25-year-old guy from Australia who has sold several websites for large sums of money and now shares his methods for dominating your blog and your niche. He also answers every comment on his blog. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or sign up for his emails.

This week on The Lede …

• What really works on Twitter
• One thing social media copywriters should never do
• 9 productive social media hacks
• A reminder of the power of the original social media

If you just can’t wait for The Lede every Saturday, and you want even more practical, useable links than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter.

It’s painless. Really.

//

9 Social Media Hacks You Need to Embrace Now
Mr. Baer makes a good case that though social media is inexpensive in monetary terms, it can get good and costly when it comes to spending your time and brain power. His 9 “hacks” can help keep you sane and productive in the fast, fast digital world we run in.

//

100 Ways to Become a Twitter Power User
Mr. Patel is on a content tear lately, not just cranking it out, but cranking out the good stuff. The headline of his article says it all, and you’d do your Twitter efforts a service to give it the once over. From how to generate more retweets, to becoming a more interesting Twitter writer, this one is well worth an hour.

//

The Basics of Pinterest for Content Marketers
Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest. It’s on the tip of many tongues these days, for good reason: it’s driving quality traffic. If you’re a content marketer with a visual bent, you should get over there and start pinning. But first check out the infographic above …

//

Copywriters Should Never Try to Change the Prospect’s Mind
Remember that person you used to date, how you tolerated certain personality quirks or behaviors because you were sure you could change them … eventually? Veteran copywriter Nick Usborne shows you why it didn’t work back then, and why you shouldn’t try to do it now, in your business. Hint: It’s impossible.

//

What Works on Twitter: The Definitive, Data-Driven Guide
It’s official, people on Twitter don’t care what you ate for lunch. What works? If you’ve been reading Copyblogger for any amount of time, the answer to that question won’t come as a surprise. At all. We’ve been preaching this very thing for more than six years …

//

Email Newsletters are a Serious Business
Email: the original social media. By collecting and briefly analyzing a few top email newsletters publishing today, Mr. Baptiste has given us an important reminder — sexy does not always sell (best). Do you publish an email newsletter? Are you reaching out to your customers and fans on a regular schedule via email? If not, you’re leaving money on the table, and why would you want to do that?

//

How to Create a Powerful Password You Can Actually Remember
The greatest plague that Social Media hath wrought? Passwords. There are a few great password management tools out there (that you should definitely be using), but xkcd brings us back to the old school in this cartoon. As always, the old school is simple, and it confuses the hell out of hackers and their big, bad hacking machines. Yeah.

Did you miss anything on Copyblogger this week?

• How to Grow Your Freelance Writing Business by Working Less
• 5 Ways Writers Can Break Out of the Tired Old Social Media Box
• 10 Content Marketing Goals Worth Pursuing
• What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers
• Even if Blogging Drools, Online Content Rules

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.

What if most of the business world stopped blogging tomorrow?

Would you stop as well?

No, if that happened, you’d find yourself sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Social networking sites would explode with likes and retweets and pins and +1s of your original content all day long.

This is why the annual “blogging is dead” claim is so dumb. Even if it were true, your continued content production would dominate the web in every way.

So, instead of worrying about the latest claimed trend or alarming decline of the moment, stay the course.

Original content creation is the present — and the future — of online marketing.

In this episode, Brian Clark and I discuss:

• Has blogging peaked?
• The clear future of online marketing
• What Twitter wants, and how to give it
• Is the online playing field really even?
• Why it doesn’t matter (at all) if “blogging” dies
• What even the major brands are focusing on right now

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

• Click here to download the mp3 | 25.1 MB | 20:49
• Click here to subscribe via iTunes
• Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
• Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

• Internet Marketing for Smart People Course (free)
• Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500
• Are company blogs really declining? Maybe not…
• Content Marketing 101
• Why You Want To Be the Last Blog Standing
• Be Better at Twitter: The Definitive, Data-Driven Guide
• 10 Content Marketing Goals Worth Pursuing
• Do not click this link
• We left the building with Girl Talk …

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.

What can a well-run shoe store teach you about your own online business?

Well, everything.

If you’ve ever bought anything from the mega online shoe store Zappos, or if you’ve so much as heard them mentioned, the word that comes to mind is probably service.

But there’s more to the Zappo’s secret sauce than free shipping and some nice people on the phone.

They embody three important lessons that any blogger, online marketer, or small business owner can learn … and start finding customers that don’t just like you, they love you.

Let’s look at each, and how you can apply them to your business.

1. It all starts with passion and purpose

You might think it would be hard to imbue a shoe store with meaning. But Zappos does it.

A lot of companies have a mission statement. Nearly all of them are lame. Instead of another dreary statement about “synergy” and “excellence,” Zappos lives what they call their core values, which include things like “create fun and a little weirdness,” and “be humble.”

It all originates with founder Tony Hsieh’s insatiable curiosity and penchant for doing work he loves.

What Zappos does comes from their culture — and that culture is grounded in those core values. The two cannot be separated.

Without their core values, Zappos is just one of a million e-commerce sites. With them, they become something remarkable.

We have an environment where we empower our employees to do what’s best for the customer with minimal policies and hoops to jump through in order to do it. It’s about giving them a purpose to their job as opposed to just answering questions and taking orders.
~ Maura Sullivan, Senior Manager of Zappos’ Customer Loyalty team

Whether you’re running a company of one or one hundred, you need to have some values beyond “I need to book three new clients this week.”

Integrity and a sense of purpose are highly attractive to customers, and they make your business a lot more enjoyable to run.

2. Everything is customer service

Every action you take — the design of your web site, your content, how you answer email — communicates something to your customer. About serving her. About helping her.

It’s about under-promising and over-delivering.

At Zappos, the customer loyalty team is empowered to regularly go above and beyond to make the customer feel important and special.

This can mean a care package, random freebies thrown in with your order, or anything else they feel like doing.

Again, Sullivan says,

Our employees don’t have to be passionate about shoes, or anything else we sell, but they need to be passionate about service and helping people. That’s where great customer experiences come about — being able to help someone, it can change their day — even if it was just a pair of shoes.

When you bake surprise and delight into your business model, people talk about that. A lot. This is the secret to being a truly remarkable business. Accomplishing the unexpected is the norm.

When you see everything you do as service (and therefore, as marketing), everything you do will become just a little better. And customers will notice.

3. Keeping a lean state of mind

Some web startups are run like the former Soviet Union. Lots of rules. Lots of processes. And not much reward for going outside the lines.

And then there are those Fortune 500 companies that function like family businesses. (Some of them still are.)

The difference is mindset.

Unencumbered by organizational bureaucracy, Zappos’ employees are free to do the work they signed up for. Sure, they’ve got manuals and policies, but those only exist to help employees help customers.

Being this nimble is a choice.

And, admittedly, it can be a challenge at times, especially for a company the size of Zappos.

So how do they do it?

Communication is key, especially when making a change or something that will affect the day to day. In a company that is constantly reinventing and redefining itself, making sure everyone is up to date and on the same page is crucial.

Stay nimble. Stay flexible. And as you reinvent and redefine yourself, communicate with the people who need to know about it — your customers, and your employees if you have them.

You may even want to go the Copyblogger route with your business plan, and start talking to your customers before you have something to sell.

Make sure those lines of communication are open. This is as important on the day you start as the day you sell your business to Amazon for umpty million dollars.

What’s compelling about Zappos is their focus on connection. From the “top” down, it’s all about relationships.

They make sure passion and purpose are the fuel for all the work they do, and they never forget that the business lives or dies on how well they serve the customer.

You can do the same.

How about you?

Is there something you admire about Zappos that you’d like to do more of in your business? Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Jeff Goins is a writer, idea guy, and online marketer. You can connect with him on his blog Goins, Writer or follow him on Twitter @jeffgoins. He is currently working on his first book. To read about his journey from blogger to book author, check out his eBook Every Writer’s Dream: How to Never Pitch Your Writing Again.

Ever wonder why content marketing works so well for some businesses … and doesn’t seem to do anything at all for others?

Curious about why some content that seems great doesn’t do anything to build the business?

“Content is king” has been an online cliché for years now, but it’s not true. It’s never been true.

Content all by itself — even terrific content — is just content.

It may be entertaining. It may be educational. It may contain the secret to world peace and fresh, minty breath, all rolled into one.

But it has no magical powers. It won’t transform your business or get you where you need to go, until you add one thing …

Content marketing is a meaningless exercise without business goals.

What makes content marketing work?

To make content work, you need to understand your marketing and business goals. Then you can create content that serves those goals, instead of just giving your audience something to pass the time.

Your blog posts, email marketing, special reports, podcasts, advertising … all of it needs to fit into a larger picture.

Now if you blog purely for creative self expression, go ahead and write as the spirit moves you.

But if you’re using content to market a business, you need a strategic framework so you can get the most out of your time and hard work.

Here are 10 of the business goals that drive our content marketing at Copyblogger Media. You might focus on just one or two, or you may use all 10. As you read through the list, see which of these you can apply to your own marketing plan.

Goal 1. To build trust and rapport with your audience

This is the most obvious use of content marketing, and it’s a good one.

When you create useful, interesting, and valuable content, your audience learns they can trust you. They see that you know your topic. They get a sense of your personality and what it would be like to work with you.

Lack of trust kills conversion. An abundance of valuable content builds trust like nothing else.

But too many marketers stop there. In fact, it’s just the beginning.

Goal 2. To attract new prospects to your marketing system

We all had it drilled into our heads by Mr. Godin when we were just baby content marketers: You’ve gotta be remarkable.

Your content has to be compelling enough that it attracts links, social media sharing, and conversation.

Why? Because that’s how new people find you.

No matter how delightful your existing customers are, you need a steady stream of new prospects to keep your business healthy.

Remarkable content that gets shared around the web will find your best new prospects for you, and lead them back to everything you have to offer.

Goal 3. To explore prospect pain

No, you’re not doing this to be a sadist.

The fact is, most enduring businesses thrive because they solve problems.

They solve health problems, parenting problems, money problems, business problems, technology problems, “What should I make for dinner” problems.

When you understand your prospect’s problems, you understand how to help them, and you have the core of your marketing message.

Strategic content dives into the problems your prospects are facing. What annoys them? What frightens them? What keeps them awake at night?

A smart content marketing program leaves room for audience questions. These might come in email replies, blog comments, or you may hold Q&A sessions or webinars specifically to solicit questions.

Listen to the problems your market asks you about, and use those as a compass to guide your future content.

Goal 4. To illustrate benefits

Obviously, we don’t dig up prospect problems and leave it at that.

We talk about solutions.

We talk about what fixes those annoying problems. Techniques, tips, tricks, methods, approaches.

If you have a viable business, you have a particular take on solving your market’s problems. Your individual approach is the flesh and blood of your content marketing.

Your “10 Ways to Solve Problem X” post shows the benefits of your approach.

Your special report illustrates how you solve problems, and shows customers what they get out of working with you.

Strategic content doesn’t just tell a prospect “My product is a good way to solve your problem.” It shows them. And that’s a cornerstone persuasion technique.

Goal 5. To overcome objections

Your prospect is looking for ways to solve his problem, but he’s also keeping an eye out for potential problems.

Strategic content can be a superb way to address prospect objections — the reasons they don’t buy.

Is price a pain point? Write content showing that implementing your solutions saves money in the long run.

Do your customers think your product will be too complicated to use? Write content that shows customers going from zero to sixty … painlessly.

Understand the objections that keep customers from buying, then think about creative ways to resolve those objections in content — often before the buyer ever gets to that sales page.

Goal 6. To paint the picture of life with your product

Ad-man Joe Sugarman was one of the great early practioners of content marketing. He was a master of long-copy magazine ads for his company JS&A (a consumer gadget company), ads that were often as interesting and compelling as the magazine articles they appeared next to.

In his Copywriting Handbook, he described how he might approach writing an ad for a Corvette.

Feel the breeze blowing through your hair as you drive through the warm evening. Watch heads turn. Punch the accelerator to the floor and feel the burst of power thta pins you into the back of your countour seat. Look at the beautiful display of electronic technology right on your dashboard. Feel the power and excitement of America’s super sports car.

Sugarman isn’t describing the car. He’s describing the experience of the driver.

Sugarman was a master at mentally putting the customer into the experience of owning the product … whether that product was a pocket calculator, a private jet, or a multi-million dollar mansion.

It works very nicely in an ad. It works even better in your content.

Storytelling is one of the best content marketing strategies, and it’s a superb way to let customers mentally “try out” your offer before they ever experience it for themselves. Use content to show what it’s like to own your product or use your service.

Case studies are terrific for this, as are any stories that show how your approach to problem-solving works. Pick up Sugarman’s book for lots of ideas about how to create fascinating content for products that might not immediately suggest a fascinating story.

Goal 7. To attract strategic partners

Once upon a time, Copyblogger was one writer.

No software business. No marketing education business. No premium WordPress themes or hosting.

From very early days, the quality of the content posted here has attracted strategic partners — the partners Brian Clark worked with to create every line of revenue-generating business we have today.

Eventually, that evolved into the creation of a new company — Copyblogger Media. The partnership brings together a great complement of skills, and together we can go farther and faster than Brian could have on his own.

Whatever your business goals are, partnerships are often the smartest way to get there. When you’re passionate about creating excellent content, you’ll find that potential partners are attracted to that passion.

Goal 8. To deepen loyalty with existing customers

This one is probably my favorite.

Every company needs to attract new customers. But the biggest growth potential in most businesses comes from building a tighter relationship with your existing customers.

A solid base of referral and repeat business is the hallmark of a great business. Even if you never did any content marketing to anyone other than your customers, you could radically improve your business by improving the communication you have with your customers today.

Create a richer experience for the people who have already bought from you. Make your products and services work better by pairing them with useful, user-friendly content.

Don’t treat the waitress better than you do your date. Give great stuff to the people who have already bought from you, and they’ll reward you for it.

Goal 9. To develop new business ideas

Your content stream is a fantastic place to try out new ideas.

Thinking about re-positioning your key product? Trying to better define your unique selling proposition? See a new problem on the horizon that your customers might want you to solve?

Get those ideas into your content, and see how people react. You can watch what excites people, and what fizzles out.

Business writer Jim Collins talks about firing bullets, then cannonballs. In other words, when you get a new idea for your business, fire off something low-risk to test the waters.

Don’t start firing your big ammunition until you’re sure you can actually hit the target. (And that there’s a target there to hit.)

Content is an amazing low-risk way to try out your ideas while risking very little. Your audience will let you know with their reactions which ideas fire them up, and which ones leave them cold.

Goal 10. To build your reputation with search engines

Lots of content creators think this is reason #1 to create content — but if you put this in the wrong place, you’ll probably struggle with SEO.

That’s because search engines find you valuable when readers find you valuable.

Search engines are looking for content that’s valuable to their users. If you create that type of content, your SEO battle is 9/10 done.

So put the first 9 content marketing goals first, and the 10th becomes a matter of relatively simple SEO optimization.

How about you?

What’s the main thing you’re looking to get out of content marketing? Do you have a content marketing goal you don’t see here?

Let us know in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Share your brilliant content marketing goals with her on twitter.

It’s time to teach that old dog some new tricks.

That old dog I’m referring to is social media.

Sure, you’re already blogging, and on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, and more. Great.

But I’m telling you — there’s more to social media than meets the eye. The final chapter on social media hasn’t been written.

When I kicked off my writing business in April, I decided to use social media my way.

I approached these overused networks as if I’d never heard of them. I made my own rules. I set different expectations. You could say I wrote my own chapter on social media marketing.

It made my website — and my business — better.

Here’s what I came up with, and how you can incorporate these features into your own marketing plan.

1. YouTube: For a bit of drama

YouTube’s not just for viral cat videos and covers of Justin Bieber songs.

I uploaded images of my best-looking writing clips, then stitched together a video portfolio on iMovie. (Take screen shots or scan documents if you don’t have original files.)

I like to think of it as my “me trailer” complete with sound effects, music, and dramatic editing.

Once I posted it to YouTube, I embedded it on my website and added a burst that says, “Click Here to See My Trailer!”

It’s super nerdy. It’s unconventional. It’s me.

Most importantly, it advertises my services in a fresh way and shows all of my specialties in less than three minutes. It’s not about getting the most YouTube views, it’s about getting business.

And it has Star Wars references. (Not required for success.)

Takeaway: Videos make your site more interesting and show your personality. A welcome video can introduce clients to your site. A video biography can turn you from a static picture into a new friend. Most computers, cameras, or phones provide all of the movie-making software you need.

2. Foursquare: For showing off

The location-based site and mobile app lets users “check-in” to venues like restaurants, famous landmarks, and their own homes in pursuit of badges and points.

Foursquare users can friend others and also follow their favorite brands’ pages. Upon unsuspectingly checking in to one of the brand’s favorite venues, a tip will pop up from said brand.

I took advantage of this feature and created my own brand page on Foursquare. But what kind of tips would I share with my followers? The best places to find free wi-fi around the world. Who doesn’t enjoy a free connection, plentiful plugs, and good coffee?

Now when people follow my page and check in to a location near one of my top wi-fi spots, a little pop-up box on their Foursquare app will remind them of my business and how helpful I am.

I even created a Foursquare venue for my writing business. So other nearby businesses — the original The Onion headquarters is steps away — know that I’m here. And I’m ready to rock.

Takeaway: Maybe you’re a movie critic who knows the best theaters around the country. Or a fashion blogger who knows all the top boutiques in New York City. Or a roaming travel writer who knows the best cheap eats from coast to coast. Share’em on your favorite social review site.

3. Pinterest: For going viral

Are you obsessed with Pinterest yet? Pin + interest = Pinterest. It’s a digital pin board site where users “pin” their favorite images to themed boards. You can follow other users’ boards and “re-pin” their content.

I run a little travel blog on the side because I’m working on breaking into travel writing. Pinterest and its cult following seemed like the perfect place to showcase my own travel photography in hopes of a little viral action.

So I created a Pinterest account for my travel blog and I pinned my images to boards like “Pretty Travel Pics” and “Must-Do Travel Experiences.”

I pinned other people’s images, too. This isn’t all about me — you gotta show some love to get some love.

My personal photography has been re-pinned oodles of times and every pic links back to my travel blog. Instant traffic.

If I’m lucky, my pins will appear on the Pinterest home page. Just another unusual way to get my name out there.

Takeaway: Image-based sites like Pinterest, Flickr, and Instagram aren’t just for photographers. If you’re a food blogger, showcase pics of your best recipes. If you’re a tech reporter, gather images of your favorite gadgets.

4. Facebook: For looking important

Every business has a Facebook page, but why did my business need one?

I decided to designate my official Facebook page as a newsfeed of all the things I’ve written.

It’s a vertical version of my portfolio and another way potential clients can see what I’ve been working on — especially what I’ve been working on this week.

Sure, the page won’t get a whole lot of ‘likes’ and my mom is the only person who ‘likes’ my posts regularly (thanks, Mom!), but that’s not the goal of my Facebook page.

It’s there to display my latest clients and clips. And to show that I know how to build Facebook pages – I’m a social media consultant after all.

Takeaway: There’s a cookie cutter social media plan that’s been set in front of us all. But if it doesn’t make sense for your business, don’t follow it.

5. Amazon Associates: for bragging

Amazon Associates is an affiliate program for Amazon.com products. Create an online store (complete with your own URL), fill it with hand-picked items, and you’ll get money for each completed purchase.

I decided to create my own “aStore” as they’re called, not to make money but to show off my latest books and the publications I’m featured in.

I’m simply taking advantage of Amazon’s free social shopping features for my own benefit. I don’t want the money.

I uploaded a branded header image similar to the image on my Foursquare page, Facebook page, and website.

I created a page called “Aubre Andrus Books” and included text explaining that I have five books coming out over the next two years.

I’m able to brag without looking like I’m bragging. And when my books come out, I’ll have a stocked store. Impressive, right?

Takeaway: There are a lot of free widgets and plug-ins out there that can make your business better. Don’t let a little html or an affiliate contract scare you.

Now, it’s your turn …

Choose the social networks that excite you, then throw the rules to the wayside.

This is all about doing it your way.

How do you use social media differently?

Do you use Google+ or Twitter in a way that make you stand out from the competition? Share your strategies in the comments below!

About the Author: Aubre Andrus writes for her favorite brands and publications as an author, creative copywriter, professional blogger, social media consultant, and roaming reporter. You can follow her on Twitter @aubreandrus or visit her website and portfolio.

Freelance writers make lots of mistakes, especially when they’re starting out online.

Mistakes are useful. They’re fertilizer for entrepreneurial growth. They keep you learning and moving forward.

However, if you fail to make the right mistakes — and to learn from them — you may as well just keep your writing as a weekend hobby.

You want to make the mistakes that teach you how to build a better writing business or show you things you only learned because you were reaching.

What’s one of the biggest mistakes a freelance writer can make?

Let’s find out …

Do not ignore your most important client

One of the biggest mistakes a freelance writer can make — and one most writers constantly fall into — is ignoring their most important client.

Oh sure, most writers take care of the person they think is their best client. The client who pays them the most per word and gives them the most notice between projects, or the most glowing referrals.

And you might be right. That might be your best client, but it isn’t your most important. Not by a long shot.

Your most important client is the one who will stay with you forever. The client who will help ensure you make more each year than you did the year before. Your most important client will help you do all of that, but only if you promise to never ignore them.

Who is your best client?

Your best client is you.

And are you taking care of yourself? Do you make sure your needs are met?

Do you set aside at least an hour every day to tend your projects and build your assets — the same assets that will accumulate over time and help you build streams of steady, passive income?

Probably not, most working writers don’t.

It’s bad enough when you’re freelancing, tearing through so many hours that you don’t have the time to write for your muse or build your assets, whether that means publishing fiction to Kindle or creating eCourses you can sell to your list.

But at least busy freelancers are paying the bills.

They’re growing their businesses and building their reputations.

While busy freelancers who spend all their time cranking out copy are ignoring their permanent assets, at least they have an excuse.

They’re working hard.

A case study in “working hard”

I used to run a small chain of flower shops in Long Beach, California.

There were often times when I felt I had to do everything myself, from stripping roses to answering phones, even sweeping up the shop.

But if I wasn’t booking a wedding, negotiating a better price for international roses, or helping a hapless husband build the perfect bouquet for his beautiful wife, I was costing myself and the business money.

Of course I’d learned all this before I started my writing career. Yet for some reason it took me a couple of years to figure out that the same principles held true online.

For the first year, I couldn’t justify the expense in my head.

My writing business wasn’t generating enough money to outsource, or so I thought. I quickly fell into the same trap I’d fallen into many years before in the flower business.

One excuse followed another until I finally realized that the more I wrote for myself, the more I could ultimately make in the long run.

Yet, that would never happen if I spent all my time inside my WordPress dashboard instead of building my future.

There is never any good reason to spend needless minutes mired in menial tasks that keep you busy and fenced from your future, drowning in tedium and leaving you with a finished product that probably isn’t as good as what you could have paid for.

Do any of the tasks below look familiar?

Are you needlessly spending time on any (or all) of these, because you think you should?

• Coding your website
• Audio or video transcription
• Blog design
• Accounting
• Cover art design
• Editing

You might be decent at accomplishing the items on that list.

But if you’re a writer, none are your specialty.

By outsourcing that kind of work and paying a specialist a reasonable rate, you will be buying yourself more time for the work you can charge top dollar for.

Outsourcing also gives you time to write and create the bigger assets that will make you money over time, rather than just once.

Top-notch content for your own site. Superb client education material. The kind of great marketing you create for your clients, but never write for your own business.

To truly grow as a writer, you must be willing to hand off any menial tasks that strip your time away from what you’re best at –- writing.

The less you write, the further you’ll be from realizing your goals and dreams.

It’s time to work smart

You must be willing to eliminate from your workday any mindless tasks that cannot make you money or help you grow your business.

Every task you keep for yourself is adding distance between yourself, your passion, and the true future you could be building around your writing career.

Outsourcing travels in every direction.

When you write copy for a client who doesn’t want to do it themselves, they are outsourcing their work to you. For you, writing is easy. For them, it isn’t.

Some of the things you don’t want to do, aren’t especially good at, or take you far too long, are tasks other people are exceptional at and enjoy doing: coding, WordPress development, blog design, research, and all the other stuff your writing business needs to grow.

Let others handle the heavy lifting of your business so you can spend your time writing a better tomorrow for yourself instead.

Don’t spend your time sweeping the floor with your future.

About the Author: Sean Platt is a content marketer and cofounder of outstandingSETUP. Get his free report 9 Website Building Mistakes You Should Avoid.

This week on The Lede …

• Seth Godin’s simple cure for writer’s block.
• Why David Ogilvy called himself a lousy copywriter.
• A case study in the power of the blog.
• 10 ways to use Pinterest for your business.

If you want more links you can use than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter.

//

A Stalker’s Guide to Competitive Research
If you ever wanted a shot at becoming a private detective (without the hassle of becoming a private detective), this is it. Comprehensive does not begin to describe this article from Ms. Narayanasamy. In it, she lays out an amazingly simple and incredibly thorough strategy to gain a lasting competitive advantage in your industry.

//

Seth Godin’s Simple Cure for Writer’s Block
Leave it to Mr. Godin to supply a sensible solution to a wicked problem that has plagued writers since we were etching useful content on tablets. Stone tablets, I mean. Like most good advice, you’ll likely say “Of course…” when you read this. Don’t forget to act on it.

//

I am a lousy copywriter ~ David Ogilvy
There is some kind of relief in reading a line like that from a titan of your craft. This honest, engaging little 1955 letter from Mr. Ogilvy says much about practical professionalism, struggle, and getting your work done despite the forces working against you from within and without.

//

How to Find the Time for Content Creation
Warning: do not dismiss this post for its deceptive simplicity. We’ve heard it one hundred times, and could stand to hear it one hundred more. This advice lies at the core of getting good content produced. And yes, that’s the content that can drive your business.

//

Content Marketing is a War of Attrition
Babe Ruth said, “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” That, along with a plan that changed and morphed along the way, is pretty much the story of Copyblogger. It can pretty much be the story of anyone who chooses to take it up.

//

The Power of a Blog
Mr. Lefsetz asks if you’re better off being written up in the major media, or on a major blog. Then he answers the question definitively. This might seem a bit like preaching to the choir, but the reminder — in this case — is a valuable one.

//

10 Ways to Use Pinterest for Business
I’ve heard it said that Pinterest is for soccer moms. I also remember hearing that Facebook was just for college kids …

Did you miss anything on Copyblogger this week?

• 12 Tips for Selling to a Global Audience
• How to Instantly Transform Your Landing Page Images from Good to Great
• 4 Simple Steps to a Facebook Timeline that Tells Your Marketing Story
• The Glee Guide to Attracting a Raving Horde of Social Media Fans
• 6 Useful Tips for 3 Big Email Marketing Questions

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse.